If I asked a wide range of people what they they think the best user interface is, most would respond Microsoft’s Windows 7, some will say Mac OS X 10.6, the people who spend their entire day glued to their laptop will say either Firefox, Chrome or Safari, but what if I told you that this was the best interface today, the one everyone uses multiple times a day, and may not even realize it even fits into the category of “user interface”, is Google’s search box?
Take a look at Apple’s iPhone, and then take a look at any user interface created in the past two decades, and you’ll realize that a cluster of icons representing applications that do different things is the one thing that has remained consistent and has not evolved over all these years. The same can be said about Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and Symbian. We’ve been using computers for so long that we don’t even question the one icon = one application paradigm, even when it follows us inside our pockets.
Earlier this week Steve Litchfield from All About Symbian published a piece that nearly made me strangle him since I’d thought he had stolen my idea for this week’s “Mission Impossible: Creating the perfect smartphone”, but then I realized that if he is thinking the same thing I am, there must be others out there coming to the same conclusion. He wrote about Google’s Mobile Application and how one can enter various queries such as “weather” or “20 EUR in USD” to get the results they’re looking for. Stop and think about this for a second.
You don’t open the weather application to get the weather. You don’t open the unit conversion application to convert between inches and centimeters. You don’t open this application to do that, or that application to this, you just enter a string of words or characters and out pops your desired result. Extend this even further and imagine an interface when one inputs data and then you get a series of actions as a result.
What does the number 645 mean to you? Absolutely nothing. Now imagine you open your mobile phone and immediately key in 645. Your phone, like Google, would present you with a list of things that it can do with the query “645”
- 1. Countdown 6 minutes 45 seconds
- 2. Set an alarm for 6:45
- 3. Send an SMS to Mike
- 4. Call Mike
- 5. Open calculator
Counting down is also something everyone does, whether it be to know when to take the tea pot off the stove, or as a reminder to do a certain task. Setting an alarm is again, something everyone does almost every workday. Mike’s name turns up because the letter “M” can be matched to the number 6 on a standard 10 digit keypad, “I” can be matched to the number 4, and “K” to the number 5. I can either SMS Mike or call him. Finally 645 maybe a number I would like to manipulate some how so I’d like to open the calculator application. Depending on which option I select most often, that list of 5 search results changes. If I’m constantly texting Mike then the next time I type 645 into my device the option of sending him an SMS will be the first result. This list of actions can be expanded upon by third party developers. If I’m on Twitter, then the next time I type 645 into my mobile device an option could appear on that list to send @Mike a tweet or a direct message.
When Apple introduced iPhone OS 3.0 they introduced a new feature that allowed you to swipe to the left of your home screen and then start typing to find the application you’re looking for. They did this because some people had pages and pages of applications, and remembering which page an application was on proved tedious. When Google introduced Android 2.0 they improved the search box widget and announced that 3rd party developers could add their search engines to provide relevant results. When any power Nokia user gets a new Symbian device, the first application they almost always install is HandyTaskman since it’s not only a better task manager, but allows you to ease yourself of the mental burden of having to remember which folder holds which application; simply start typing the name. Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices have the ability to search for a contact by simply typing the first few letters of their first or last name.
Here is a use case that I recently encountered: I just left the American Embassy in Helsinki since I needed to renew my passport. The woman at the counter told me to come back next Wednesday around the same time. I took my phone out of my pocket, launched the calender application, switched to month view, scrolled a row down to highlight next Wednesday, selected option, new appointment, typed in the subject “pick up passport” and then assigned an alarm for noon on that day.
How would I have performed the same action using the perfect smartphone? I would have taken my mobile phone out of my pocket, unlocked the screen, and simply typed in “pick up passport next Wednesday at noon” and hit enter and then shoved my phone back into my pocket. This technology already exists. Google Calender has something called “quick add”. Here is the text I type into the quick add box:
And here is what I get back:
I’m not a Linux user longing for the days of the command line to come back. The command line was nothing more than a way to launch applications by typing in the application’s name versus double clicking. I’m someone who simply wants to spend less time dicking around with my mobile phone to get things done. I use search to find the song I want to listen to, I use Google’s search to convert currency constantly when writing articles because the IntoMobile audience is very international, I use Google’s Quick Add box to input calender entries rapidly, I open up a new tab and type in things like 54 x 36 and hit enter and get the result via Google rather than launching the calender application. In the future I’m hoping that they’ll only be one box to type, or speak into, and then depending on past behavior our mobile phones will be smart enough to know what we want them to do.
And then the machines take over, but that’s another story.